


Another Word for Best Friends is Mutual Hostages

by Zen_monk



Series: Smoke and Mirrors [5]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Sexual Situations, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, F/M, First Time, Healthy Relationships, Ninja shenanigans, Romantic Comedy, Sexual Content, Sexy sketchbook, Terrible conflict resolutions, actually two losers, overly romantic diary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 13:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15686067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zen_monk/pseuds/Zen_monk
Summary: “So, I know your secrets.”“And I know your secrets.”“And we will never reveal them to anyone else out of mutual self-preservation.”“That’s right, and we are now... closer than ever.”“...This is definitely not what I mean when I say we should know each other better.”Saizo peeked through Kagero’s sketchbook and knew at once that some knowledge should best remain forbidden.





	Another Word for Best Friends is Mutual Hostages

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: takes place in a time where Saizo has both his eyes.

“Then, that is all I have to review regarding our last mission,” said Kagero, collecting her papers and notebook from the table and tapped them on the surface to shuffle them straight.

 

Saizo sighed, relaxing his shoulders. “I’ve nothing further to add. Thanks for taking the time to meet today to talk about it.”

 

Kagero looked up with a quick smile as she placed her materials in her bag. “It is the least I can do as a ninja here. I just hope that our discussions have been helpful for future missions.”

 

“They have,” replied Saizo, reaching for his tea cup and taking a sip. “I feel more assured when going on missions with you. Do you go to other members of our team to talk about it, too?”

 

“Yes. You’re the last one to go over the mission with for today.”

 

“You’re working hard.”

 

“Hmph, you should do the same,” smirked Kagero as she took a drink from her cup. “You should hold discussions with the others after every mission as well, and not just during debriefing periods.”

 

“What makes you think I haven’t done so?” scowled Saizo.

 

“Hunting down comrades-in-arms in order to lecture them about their faults does not count as ‘talking,’ Saizo,” said Kagero, looking askance from her cup.

 

Saizo rolled his eyes. “What a bunch of thin-skinned whiners. They should know when to handle criticism.”

 

“Says the pot…” said Kagero in a low voice. She smiled more broadly when Saizo made a face.

 

“At least I’m glad that I can speak so easily with you about our missions.”

 

She laughed a little. “Speaking to each other is easy. The rest is the hard part.”

 

“Hey…”

 

She didn’t reply; instead she drained her cup and stood up. “I’ll see you later, Saizo. Lady Mikoto will be having lunch with Lord Ryoma, so I assume you will be there as well?”

 

“Of course,” said Saizo, standing up as well to see her out of his room. “That stands without question.”

 

“Well, then,” said Kagero by way of goodbye. She placed her hand upon the door handle and was about to slide open until Saizo approached and stood close to her. Looking up, she was startled to see him loom over her so closely but she stood her ground and waited for him to say his piece.

 

“What do you mean by ‘the rest is hard’ part?” he asked in a low voice.

 

He was so close that her shoulder almost touched him, and he liked the fact that just by moving into her personal space was enough to elicit a demure blush on her cheeks, and he liked that she nevertheless tried not to let it perturb her.

 

Looking up with her chin tilted and eyes square into his, Kagero said softly, “It would be nice if you aren’t so contrary when we speak.”

 

“I have my own opinions,” he said.

 

“There, just like that. It is as though I am speaking to a ten-year old.”

 

Saizo scoffed quietly. “Hrmph. I am not so ungracious as to not acknowledge when I’ve been proven wrong. I merely wish to impose my point of view on all other matters.”

 

Kagero blinked owlishly at him and crossed her arms, although she leaned in a little closer to him. “Maybe work a bit more on being gracious at most times, hm?”

 

“If I do, our discussions wouldn’t be as fun.”

 

“You’re impossible.” She turned to open the door when he placed a hand on her shoulder and nudged her gently back to him.

 

“One more thing.”

 

He phrased it as though it was a question rather than a statement. He bent and lowered his head down close to her level, an invitation for a kiss. She took it, raising her hands up so to place on his shoulder and against the back of his head. She pushed on her toes slightly to raise her mouth to his. Saizo wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close when she deepened it and took control, and for that brief moment the whole world was reduced to just the feeling of her lips and warm mouth.

 

Kagero moved away first, lowering down from her toes and almost bringing him down with her, and he lazily opened his eyes to look down into her gaze with his forehead pressed against hers. An experience unspoken to anyone else save what he would document, but kissing Kagero and being kissed by her proved what he long knew before that there were deep currents of passion hiding beneath her placid, near pristine surface.

 

Kagero cleared her throat, lowering her eyes first, and he made a private note to himself for later that the action produced shadows on her cheeks.

 

“Well, then,” she said again, if a bit breathless. “I will see you later.”

 

“Mm-hmm,” he uttered from deep within his throat. He raised his head to press a kiss on her forehead. “See you later,” he murmured against her crown.

 

She placed her hand on the door handle, and he stepped back to allow her room to leave. Like a cat taking its quick leave, she left him almost in a smooth blur of dark hair whipping behind her and with only a smile on reddened lips being the last thing he saw.

 

Saizo ran his hand through his hair and sighed, the heat of his own blush radiating from his neck and cheeks. He stood there for a moment longer, his heart feeling light and skipping beats, and took a deep breath to settle himself. He then strode to his dresser to open a compartment which contained his most recent observation journals. Running his fingers down the spines of several dossiers, he found the one he was looking for and pulled it out neatly, and closed the drawer silently.

 

He sat down at the low table where he had previously talked with Kagero, the teacups still on the surface. Opening his writing box, he took out his brush, inkstone, and inkstick, and set to grind the inkstick into the inkstone with a dribble of water poured into it. When the consistency was to his liking, he opened the book the latest page, dated it, and wrote without hesitation.

 

_Midday. Half past noon. Finished meeting with Kagero going over previous mission results. On the same page with most observations and only additional input added to clarify details. Argued only on the performance of other members of the team, otherwise little else in disagreement. She tucked her hair behind her ear five times. When she thinks or is listening to me, she touches her fingers to her lips, which was no less than ten times. More distracting than when she drinks from my cup._

 

His eyes drift up from the page to look at the opposing teacup. He reached over to grab it and look at it with bland scrutiny. Turning the cup, he saw that there was a lip print barely visible from the balm that was still moist on her lips. He recalled it tasting like mint and herbs, and he wondered if she used it as a preference or out of consideration for the fact that anything resembling a sweet taste made him retch.

 

He placed the cup down and jotted down that observation.

 

_She sits in seize position almost the whole time she was here, only relaxing when finished. She sits bone straight as though this too is as serious a ritual as making her strange tea. Her focus in all things are almost unparalleled. Only time she relaxed was when making art of any kind, training, or when no one is around. She ought to be more careful. Example of noble upbringing? Does she act this way to everyone including me?_

 

Saizo paused and thought, and then went back to writing.

 

_Addendum: her hair smells like lavender._

 

Satisfied, he waited for the paper to dry, careful to make sure the ink did not bleed through the pages. In the meantime, he gathered the cups and saucers onto a tray and stood up to place them in a tub to be taken away to a wash sink when he saw a black-bound book lying on the floor. Curious, he placed the tray back down on the table and bent down to reach for it.

 

Standing up, he did not recognize it as anything he owned, nor was it labeled to indicate anything else save that it looked as though someone bound it by an inexperienced hand a good while ago. However, looking at the edges of the sheaves of paper within, he noted that the paper was thick and uneven, durably-made so that ink and graphite could stick, and knew then that it belonged to Kagero.

 

Against better judgment, even though he knew in the back of his mind he shouldn’t for her voice echoed through his mind as a triggered reminder, he opened the book and flipped through the pages.

 

Drawn in graphite, sketches filled almost every centimeter of each page. Isolated practice drawings of hands and feet, which by themselves he understood them clearly and also noted that the detail in which they were applied made it seem as though each limb was life-like and autonomous from a body. There were sketches of rooms and gardens, seemingly hastily drawn as though catching a memory through the fingertips, and he thought that its incompleteness was more poignant than a finished product. When half-drawn and almost lacking in obvious intent, it seemed like her drawings are more comprehensible than when she put out a finished work, wherein her perspective bled through the concept so that it was shaped almost irreconcilably from its origins.

 

Each sketch was dated. From where he started was the oldest sketch. He went further into the past, and noted sporadically that people populated the pages in fuller completion. Queen Mikoto was a popular subject, recognizable by her imperial crown where otherwise she was portrayed in a more ghostly depiction than what she was in reality. Orochi was also drawn, recognizable by her hair bound in complicated chignons while seen as fluid as a wraith, which Saizo thought was appropriate. Reina was drawn in profile, her cross-shaped scar marring over a face still as a noh mask, and he knew at first glance that Kagero meant to portray her with a peaceful mien but instead its placidity implied a far more sinister visage.

 

Saizo never really thought of Kagero’s pictures as ugly, although he doesn’t think they are conventionally pleasing; if anything, he was mostly confused. Some of their more “spirited” discussions around her art remind him of times when he had some difficulty in learning his sums during his preteen years and stared at a piece of paper confounded, and in the end he just accepted the fact that perhaps he just doesn’t get it. It was, at least, something novel to look at, which does little to relieve Kagero’s ire.

 

Sporadically, she does draw bulky males with defined muscles drawn in a way that the body appeared harsh and intimidating with an almost inhuman fearsomeness that was not unlike oni effigies that decorate temples that signify guardianship. The faces also were no pretty picture, showing dark glowers and demonic grim faces that could rival the spearwoman Oboro’s own infamous visage. Wild hair also sprouted from its crown, and he wondered where the horns were amidst the crown of hair that seemed to flow like flames. 

 

He drew his face closer to the notebook, as though he was near-sighted. “Is this a demon or a human?” he muttered.

 

Smaller sketches that showed its back, hawkish profiles, and even poses that showed demons in the process of battle, flinging out projectiles and raising large objects. He flipped through the book, taking note of whatever may have struck her fancy when drawing this subject. Hands and feet. Back and shoulders. Dressed in rags, covered in head to toe like a shadowy demon, and studies of it drawn naked from the waist up. Judging from these gestures, he conjectured that they were perhaps drawn models of their shinobi peers.

 

He brought the sketchbook closer to his face, squinting. Maybe one of them was of him.

 

Sporadically, he spied some drawings of interest, and examining them further, a flash of heat spread across his cheeks and neck.

 

Many sketches were anatomy studies. Isolated, they were comprehensible depictions of torso, muscles, arms, and legs. Hands and feet were drawn. There were also many depictions of breasts, disembodied in their study, and penises floating about with nary an owner.

 

Saizo’s fingers clutched at the book to leave harsh wrinkles on the binding and pages, and if it weren’t for the snap of someone’s wooden sword striking an object that rang out through the air that Saizo realized he was holding his breath. He ran a nervous hand through his hair, looking around hastily as though someone was watching him holding doing something illicit. 

 

He shouldn’tbe surprised that Kagero as an artist would try her hand at anatomical drawings, or for that matter nude drawings of people. However, it was harder to think that this was Kagero, whom he would see perched on her favorite spot when drawing, her expression full of the same focus she put into her artwork as she does during combat, and all the while she could be drawing burly musclemen (or oni or beastmen, he honestly would be hard-pressed to tell the difference) with penises hanging about.

 

And in some sketches, he noted with smothered amusement, erect ones.

 

There’s something reassuring in knowing that however abstract Kagero’s artwork can be, an erection still looked like an erection. Until now, he was under the assumption that anything Kagero touches can be considered “unique” (although if he was being honest with himself, downright unholy) so he was glad that this was rendered fairly normal, There were moments when he thought that Kagero’s art would stop just short of breaking obscenity laws.

 

Saizo made a concerned “hmm” at the numerous pictures of the subject masturbating, his mouth screwed into a smirk to barely conceal his mirth. He tried not to linger too long on them, but he felt like he was some kid who found his parents’ porn cache. And like a kid, he sniggered under his breath at the new knowledge he found. 

 

Especially when there’s a female subject added into the mix.

 

Drawn in charcoal, both woman and man were a collection of scribbles and swirls to signify their bodies and shapes without much detail save for some obvious anatomy and gender characteristics, but what was most clear was what they were doing to one another.

 

Hands like meat hooks holding her breasts from behind while she leaned her head back rapturously. Another of the two kissing passionately while naked from the waist up, her hand reaching down suggestively. A long view of the man’s back as he lay atop the woman, who was visible only by her hands and legs wrapped around his shoulders and waist, her hair a dark pool on the ground.

 

Saizo turned his head away, feeling really hot under the collar and almost humbled by the exactness of her imagination put to paper. His body was like lead, probably from being rooted to the spot for a long time even though it was probably just ten minutes of him standing there and peeking into Kagero’s apparently lurid sketchbook.

 

He couldn’t believe she was just casually carrying this around, as though she would never forget it somewhere in someone’s room where their occupant can just have look-see. In fact, he should, out of respect for Kagero, put the book down and pretend with a superior feeling that he never saw it and will only mention it casually by way of asking if she was comfortable drawing naked people.

 

He looked back down into the book and turned the page, ignoring his noble thought, a blush deepening when he saw that she was getting more imaginative in body positions and perspectives, as well as the intensity of their gestures. Some of them almost bordered on assault, which he felt both uncomfortable and intrigued. Blithely, he wondered if what these were her own fantasies.

 

Then he stopped laughing.

 

... _Wait_.

 

He brought the sketchbook close to his face so that his nose was almost touching, and he quickly began to make a checklist in his mind.

 

Wild hair. Throwing projectiles. Scary face sometimes looking like only the top half is drawn or that there was intentionally no mouth….

 

It was a sensation not unlike being shown a picture of a candlestick and realize that there were also two faces in profile. The realization brought a very cold ball of dread plummeting down in his stomach, and then molten heat rising up within him. He felt as though he was struck upside the head.

 

_That’s me._

 

He then scanned the faces, and his face contorted in horror.

 

A woman with long black hair and a voluptuous body.

 

Emotions swirled inside his stomach where previously he was feeling aroused. Newfound knowledge once gleefully found now twisted itself into a dark sense of foreboding. In a way, this was a continuation of the kinds of feelings that Kagero’s art can invoke.

 

He looked back and forth between pages, seeing each one with new eyes, like he was going through a progression of enlightenment featuring knowledge that should be forbidden to himself, and now once known he was going to hell for an entirely different reason. He went back to the sketches of him featuring his profile and body.

 

... _I look cool_ , he thought numbly.

 

He went back to the more erotic sketches.

 

… _I look sexy_.

 

He quickly went back through the pages where he was with a woman, his eyes wide as saucers.

 

_T-That’s us!_

 

He suppressed a shocked scream, bring his hand up to his mouth to bite his knuckles to suppress it, and then raising it up to his hair to grip it hard. Panick seized him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, and goosebumps pricked up from his skin.

 

Put it down and look away. Knowledge was a terrible thing, and as a ninja he saw many things that were forbidden from people’s minds for a reason.

 

His eyes drifted back down to the book he still held in a death grip by the fingertips.

 

There they were, ink to paper,him atop Kagero with her jet black hair pooled into a black puddle onto the ground. His sketchbook counterpart’s hand hand on the back of her thigh raising it up with his waist pushed up into her. Her face turned upward, eyes drawn closed in a crescent shape, like sharp shadows upon her cheeks, with her mouth drawn subtly to evoke a soft gasp.

 

Another picture had her upon his lap, her back facing towards him while her arms wrapped around up behind over her head to encircle around his shoulders. His hands squeezing her thighs tightly while thrusting up into her, cock and balls visible while her breasts raised pertly when arched away from him.

 

Yet another had her astride him upon the ground, her hand holding his head up for her mouth to suck at her breast. Another with her head down at his waist, holding his erection up while placed in her mouth. And so another in having his head in her lap while her legs rested over his shoulders.

 

The door slid open.

 

“Excuse me, Saizo, but I seem to have for-”

 

Saizo whipped his head around to look over his shoulder. Kagero stood at the door, her hand still at the handle, and her genial face frozen. Her eyes took stock of him, his face contorted in abject horror, and then down to the black notebook held in a death grip. Saizo’s heart almost stopped, and he felt his blood pressure spike painfully in his head. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and the foreboding feeling combusted into full-blown blind panic.

 

He felt like every single part of his being was shrunken and compressed, save for his eyes which bugged out like a deer about to be hit by a runaway wagon.

 

Her face fell down slowly, eyes widening in realization, and she visibly paled and then flashed red all over her face and neck. Her hands slowly raised up to the sides of her head as her mouth opened to make a silent scream. It would have made a funny picture if he wasn’t afraid of the future.

 

It felt like they were standing frozen forever: Kagero in the doorway looking like death incarnate, Saizo caught redhanded with her most secret of secrets held in a death grip while he waited for his reckoning.

 

Outside a crow called out, mockingly, _Ahou_! _Ahou_!

 

The spell broken, Saizo was the first to hastily break the tension. “Ahhhh!” 

 

“What are you doing!?” she screeched, her hands still held on the sides of her head.

 

“I can expla-!”

 

She pointed an accusing finger at her sketchbook. “Ahhh!”

 

He saw her eyes drop lower and her face turned beet red, either in outrage or shame. She lowered her hand to point at his crotch. “AHHHHH!”

 

Aghast, he looked down and saw that there was something even lower than rock bottom. Horrified he yelped, and he hastily covered himself with her sketchbook.

 

Kagero’s face definitely contorted into rage then, and snarled worse than even Oboro can muster. “PERVERT!” she shrieked, disgusted.

 

Saizo backed away from her, recoiling. “I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry-!”

 

His pleas were useless. With speed only he can track with his well-trained eyes, she rounded on him from across the room. Flinching, he was almost face-to-face with the very image of his death when Kagero swiftly snatched the sketchbook from his hands. She then raised her hand, almost as if to strike him, but she threw a small round ball into his forehead.

 

It erupted into smoke.

 

 _POOF_!

 

Saizo doubled down, coughing and blinded by the close contact with a smoke bomb. Tears streamed from his eyes and his nose blocked up immediately, while his lungs burned from breathing in the particles.

 

He hacked and coughed, hands and knees on the floor.

 

“N-No!” he groaned through constricted throat. “Not the stink-bomb one!” 

 

In his pain, he could hear footsteps running on hard wood floors towards where he’s at, and voices calling out in a panic.

 

“What’s that noise!” said one.

 

“What’s that _smell_?!” said another.

 

“Who said pervert? Did someone say a pervert is here?!” cried a third.

 

Saizo had the cognizant that being caught in this room would be incredibly damaging and terrible to his entire reputation. He quickly scuttled across the floor to the window, hurled it open, and rolled himself over the ledge.

 

Sadly, he hasn’t quite yet recovered from the sudden attack. He rolled over the tiles of the roof, clinking and clattering as he went down. Before he fell over the ledge, he shot his hand up to grab onto the ledge with his fingertips. Unfortunately, the momentum of him falling and being debilitated from smoke overcame his already overwhelming sense of self-preservation. He lost his grip, the brief lull in his fall from holding onto the edge just enough for him to take stock before he fell, and he curled himself safely while he fell onto the green branches of the cherry trees. He hit one bough full of green foliage, rolled off it to hit another bough below it, and then shortly fell into bushes onto the ground.

 

Saizo had his head in his arms when he stopped falling, and once his mind registered that he was still breathing and that he stopped moving, he slowly opened his eyes and uncovered his head. Lying down, he took stock of himself. He was lying on his back in the hydrangeas. Nothing felt broken, but he could feel sores and bruises forming in his back, knees… everywhere.

 

“Ughhhh…” he groaned. He felt stiff everywhere. Saizo looked lower on his body, and saw something stiff still there on his lower half. “Eaaauuuugh,” he groaned deeper.

 

He remembered he had to go to lunch to be with Lord Ryoma, Queen Mikoto, and Kagero.

 

This was his fourth worst day ever.


End file.
